Compared to what? Outsourcing your retouching needs will free up your time to do other tasks that can be more beneficial to you.

As a commercial photographer, I had my own in-house retouching team to do the retouching. That enabled me to focus on shooting the assignments and client meetings. Being a retoucher is a profession on its own and a good retoucher doesn’t come cheap, however, the retouching cost is passed on to the client in the end. For real estate photography, it is now normal with next day delivery and they rely on outsourcing their retouching needs to professional retouching companies that can offer high quality services at a reasonable rate as they are based overseas in Asia. If you work in the European or US market, outsourcing is your only economical option when operating on 24 hours delivery deadline. The price is only high if you don’t have it included in your pricing. The retouching cost is part of doing business and you need to cover it.